


I cannot promise he will stay, Since all from earth return

by ardentaislinn



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Max POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:48:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentaislinn/pseuds/ardentaislinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furiosa asks if he will stay. He shrugs in answer; it’s the only one he knows how to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I cannot promise he will stay, Since all from earth return

Two endless years since Max left Furiosa at the Citadel, he stumbles back through their doors with an even heavier burden than the one he’d left with. His car is abandoned a day or so down the road, unable to make the final few miles to safety. 

He had never intended to return. He’d done his duty by these people once before and in return they had returned a small piece of his soul. But his need to survive is the strongest force within him, even more so than the yearning for redemption. So when he finds himself injured, broken, and with a small girl child in tow, there is only one place he can think to go.

The Citadel has changed much since he’d last been there. Even through his haze of exhaustion as his legs collapse beneath him, he has an impression of greenery and smiling faces. Two things he thought he’d never see again in his lifetime.

His last feeling as blackness swamps his mind is one of safety. Of home.

\---

He awakens an indeterminate amount of time later to the sense of someone standing near his shoulder. He jerks up, his hand going for the intruder's throat before conscious thought returns. The interloper brushes his weakened arm aside before it even makes contact. It’s only when she doesn’t return the attack that memory returns and he realises who she is.

“Furiosa,” he manages despite his parched tongue. She smiles in response, and he has to wonder whether he has ever seen her smile before.

“You came back,” she states. He can’t tell whether she’s pleased, surprised or disappointed by this fact so he doesn’t reply.

Her smile widens. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” he croaks. A moment of shared understanding passes between them. He looks around the room, noting that it appears to be some kind of infirmary. There are suspicious bottles and instruments lining the wall that he doesn’t recognise.

“The girl?” he asks.

“Safe,” she replies. It’s all he needs to hear.

A large woman that Max takes to be some kind of a nurse bustles in, breaking the connection between them. Ignoring Furiosa, she carefully ladles water into Max’s mouth. He drinks greedily, the cool water soothing his aching throat. By the time he’s done, Furiosa has disappeared. With no reason to stay awake, he drifts off to sleep wondering when, or if, he’d see her again.

\---

The next three or four times he wakes - he loses track - to choke some soup down his throat, she’s not there. He starts planning when he’ll leave. He calculates how long it would be before he would be strong enough to walk out on his own power, how much weight he’d have to carry with the gasoline for his car, the distance he’d have to go.

The prognosis isn’t as positive as he’d like.

But then, one day, she’s there. By this point he is well enough to sit up by himself and walk a few steps around the room. He finds himself pleased to see her - the restlessness in him quiets just a little in her presence.

“They tell me you are ready to come out of the infirmary.”

He nods, having heard the chatter.

“I’m putting you in the room next to mine,” she tells him.

He raises his brows, but says nothing.

“Just in case you need anything in the night.”

He stares at her steadily. She stares back, not a waver in her expression. He’s tempted to refuse - to try his luck now out in the desert - but there is a hint of something behind her eyes that he can’t name that draws him to stay. He’s lived so long without other people, except brief encounters with those that are as violent and depraved as he is, that he wonders if he would recognise any softer emotions if they appeared.

He finds himself giving a short nod, and he thinks he might recognise relief in her expression.

\---

They move him out later that day. He insists on walking the whole way himself, though he knows he’s not quite strong enough. Furiosa stays by his side the whole way, matching her pace to his stumbling slowness. He feels better when she’s there. He knows that she won’t let him fall.

He barely makes it, but finally sinks into the straw mattress they prepared for him. He almost immediately begins to drift off, but one part of his brain can’t entirely shut itself off. 

Max forces an eye open when he hears a slight clunk on the floor next to the mattress. He sees Furiosa’s metal arm drawing away, his gun on the floor within his reach. He has no doubt it’s loaded.

He falls almost instantly to sleep. 

\---

Over the next few days, Max slowly regains his strength. He eats better, he walks further, he washes himself, his wounds heal faster.

The restlessness, the need to keep moving, keep searching, finds him in snatches. Sometimes he feels settled, almost at peace. But then the need to leave, to continue the journey, overtakes him.

One day during a visit to his chambers Furiosa asks if he will stay. He shrugs in answer; it’s the only one he knows how to give.

He knows he hasn’t found it yet. His redemption. At least, not the kind he expected. He thought his sins and horrors would be wiped clean - a blank slate for him to begin again. But for that, his memories would have to be taken, too.

He begins to wonder if he is searching for the impossible. If redemption was even possible for a man like him. Maybe all he can hope for is an occasional balm to his soul, in whatever form it took.

These days it seemed that the closest he got to peace was when Furiosa was near. There was something about the clarity of her gaze when it landed on him; the many whispers in his mind quietened. She knows who and what he is, she understands him, and she still looks at him without judgement.

Something deep within him recognised her, too. In many ways they were the same. He suspects that she, too, finds it comforting to be understood so clearly without a need for words.

\---

He begins to work, using his muscles again to return strength and dexterity to his limbs. Small jobs at first, then harder ones as he returns to normal. They use his strength once it reappears, and he notices that there are few able-bodied, full-grown people to do such tasks. He doesn’t talk much; just follows the directions he is given. People leave him alone, other than a few curious looks. But he finds he likes the simple, satisfying work. Growing and tending and constructing. It soothes the rabid beast within him; the one always straining to be let out to commit violence and destroy. The whispers in his mind quieten, too.

Something within him slowly settles. He fights it at first. The madness within him has dominated his life for so long. But he is in the middle of healing before he even realises it has begun, cool water quenching the burning fire of hate and anger.

\---

Furiosa comes to him again with the same question. “Will you stay?”

“For a while,” he replies.

She smiles again. He finds he likes it.

\---

He spends much of the time he isn’t working with Furiosa. They don’t say much - they don’t need to - but he finds he appreciates her company. 

Sometimes she looks at him with a considering expression that confuses him, but he doesn’t mention it. She’ll tell him if she feels he needs to know.

And then one night she does.

\---

He returns from a day of work to find Furiosa in his room. He’s surprised, but not overly so. He waits for her to speak, hovering inside the door to his room. 

“Max,” she begins.

He doesn’t say anything in return.

She has apparently run out of words. Instead, she unbuckles her metal arm and drops it at her feet. It lands with a thud in the silent room. When she reaches for the waistband of her pants, he puts up a hand to stop her. 

“What…?” he asks. She is still standing nearly six steps away. He’s torn between wanting to close the gap, and increase it as much as he can.

“I want this. I’m hoping you do, too.”

Max blinks. The thought hadn’t truly crossed his mind. It had been so long since he’d considered something so...human.

He narrows his eyes, thinking through the proposition. His eyes skim across her bare arms, her lean figure, her long legs. And now the option has presented itself, he finds his body making the decision for him. His pulse speeds up and heat rushes through his limbs.

But he is no longer the monster that he was. He knows, or guesses, much of what has happened to her. He steps forward; triumph and excitement flare in her eyes. But he has one thing to say.

“I’ll be rough. I don’t have gentleness in me.” It’s the most he’s said in some time, but he has to know she’s sure.

She steps closer to him, her hand sliding up the back of his neck. It locks there, firm and steadfast. Her breath fans across his lips as she murmurs the words he needs to hear. “I wouldn’t know what to do with softness. Not anymore.”

With that, she hauls him forward, and their mouths come together in a brutal clash of lips and teeth and tongue. Her hand sinks into his hair, tugging almost painfully to direct his head where she wants it. 

Fire rushes through him, of a different kind than the usual heat of rage. His skin prickles with it beneath his heavy jacket. A roaring begins in his ears, drowning out the usual whispers in his mind.

He clutches at her hips, dragging her closer so that every inch of their fronts are pressed together. His hand slips down the back of her trousers, his fingers digging into her arse. She gasps into his mouth and he uses the opportunity to unseal their mouths. He places hot, wet kisses along her jaw and down her neck, nipping her skin as he does so.

He is already hard against her, burning with a desperate need as strange as it is familiar.

Her hand slips down to the back collar of his jacket and tugs, forcing it down his arms. He reluctantly brings his hands away from her so that she can dispose of the item completely. She does so, throwing it a few steps away.

They stare at each other for a moment, eyes level. Then, Furiosa grabs the collar of his woven shirt, stretching it tight across his back as she hauls him towards her. They meet with a furious urgency, their mouths fusing together, and she wraps one leg around his hip. He picks her up as her other leg comes around him and he stumbles them back towards the nearest wall, accidentally slamming her back with a thump in his ungainly haste. She grins at him, almost feral. His blood pools low at the sight.

Max presses his hips forward, grinding against her core through the rough fabric of their clothes. Her head falls back as she gasps. Her legs squeeze tighter around him.

He flexes his hips, rubbing against her most sensitive areas. Both their breathing speeds up, mingling together in the intimate space they’d built between them as their lips part and meld again and again.

He can feel her growing restless, moving against him in and uncoordinated rhythm, using the hardness of his body to seek her own pleasure.

She comes suddenly, her nails scraping almost painfully against his skull as her fingers tighten. He holds her steady as she gasps, chest heaving.

He doesn’t know what he expected next, but it certainly wasn’t Furiosa hooking her leg around his knee and knocking it out from under him. He falls back on his arse with a thud, Furiosa still wrapped around him. She plants her knees on either side of him and pushes lightly on his chest. Max lays back willingly, his hands gripping her hips.

Her hand goes impatiently to the fastenings of her trousers. As soon as they are undone, Max tugs them down, baring her to his gaze. His blood thumps steadily through his veins, thick and inexorable. He licks his suddenly dry lips.

Furiosa helps him maneuver her trousers off her legs, then immediately begins work on his own. Soon enough he is exposed to her hungry gaze, hard and aching.

They reach for each other at the same time, her hand gripping his cock as he brushes a teasing thumb over her clit. What is left of his mind narrows to the single focus of the sensations she is spurring in him. Pleasure pools low and his skin tightens. He is too close to the edge.

She must sense it, too, because Furiosa’s hand leaves him. His hips buck up, involuntarily trying to follow her. She smiles, running a soothing hand down his chest. Then she grips his cock, positions it, and sinks down onto it in one smooth movement.

Max groans and she pauses. He wrests some control back, even as her wet heat surrounds him. Eventually, she begins to move. Max does his best to follow her rhythm, using his hands on her hips as a reference. But he is too enthralled by the sensations blasting through him to maintain it for long. Soon, he is mindless, unable to think beyond immediate pleasure.

He reaches the edge too soon, tumbling off and into the abyss with a long groan. A part of his mind that is still conscious is thankful to feel Furiosa contracting around him as she cries out. She continues to move, using his body to prolong her pleasure. She collapses over him with a long breath.

Max raises one hand and slides it over her arm in a tender gesture. He feels her smile against him.

\---

Later than night, as they rest side by side in the darkness, Furiosa asks again.

“Will you stay?”

Max hesitates only a moment.

“I think so.”

 


End file.
